Isis Unveiled: chapter I (an axiom of hermetic philosophy)

“If the Pythagorean metempsychosis should be thoroughly explained and compared with the modern theory of evolution, it would be found to supply every “missing link” in the chain of the latter. But who of our scientists would consent to lose his precious time over the vagaries of the ancients.

Notwithstanding proofs to the contrary, they not only deny that the nations of the archaic period, but even the ancient philosophers had any positive knowledge of the Heliocentric (sun in the center) system. The “Venerable Bedes”, the Augustines and Lactantii appear to have smothered, with their dogmatic ignorance, all faith in the more ancient theologists of the pre-Christian centuries.

But now philology and a closer acquaintance with Sanskrit literature have partially enabled us to vindicate them from these unmerited imputations.

In the Vedas, for instance, we find positive proof that so long ago as 2000 B.C., the Hindu sages and scholars must have been acquainted with the rotundity of our globe and the Heliocentric system.

Hence, Pythagoras and Plato knew well this astronomical truth; for Pythagoras obtained his knowledge in India, or from men who had been there, and Plato faithfully echoed his teachings. We will quote two passages from the Aitareya Brahmana:

In the “Serpent-Mantra”, the Brahmana declares as follows: that this Mantra is that one which was seen by the Queen of the Serpents, Sarparajni; because the earth (iyam) is the Queen of the Serpents, as she is the mother and queen of all that moves (sarpat).

In the beginning she (the earth) was but one head (round), without hair (bald), i.e., without vegetation.

She then perceived this Mantra which confers upon him who knows it, the power of assuming any form which he might desire. She “pronounced the Mantra”, i.e., sacrificed to the gods; and, in consequence, immediately obtained a motley appearance; she became variegated, and able to produce any form she might like, changing one form into another.